Ann’s Fashion Fortunes

By Ann Rosenquist Fee

Here’s how to tie a T-shirt without looking like you have an umbilical hernia.

Topography of T-shirts, bangs, tags

DEAR ANN: I’m interested in the big boxy T-shirt look that’s enjoying a moment of popularity, but I don’t think I can go fully shapeless with the whole hanging-downto-mid-thigh approach. Is there a compromise? DEAR READER: Yes, and the compromise is a knot, but not the kind that makes you look like you have an umbilical hernia.

I recently stumbled upon this alternative to the single-strand knot in a quest for ways to cut a T-shirt to give it a softer silhouette, and I don’t know why it never before occurred to me to grab not one but two pieces of the bottom edge of a shirt and tie them up like this, but it just never did.

This discovery pretty much knocked me out with simultaneous humility and elation, that special combo that happens when you learn a new thing that’s so obvious it makes you wonder if you’ve ever known anything at all. Enjoy your new T-shirt look with a side of existential bliss. DEAR ANN: Recently I found myself watching Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video and was entranced by, among other things, her hairdo. It looks like every strand of hair is fiercely determined to shoot out from a single origin point. This is not something I want to see among the 1980s hair and fashion trends resurging nowadays. Is there something I can do to prevent it? DEAR READER: We can only take responsibility for our own choices, so with that in mind, I suggest you let go of the notion that you can prevent this or any trend in general and simply focus on your own directional hair habits.

Questions to ask yourself: Am I in the habit of forcing my hair to part somewhere other than where a part or a cowlick naturally occurs? Do I find myself backcombing “just a little” so my hair is “not so flat?”

Do I use a curling iron on a regular basis, and not one of those modern sticks without a springloaded handle, but a legit handled curling iron capable of creating mall bangs? Are hot rollers something I’ve used not ironically within the past decade?

If you can answer “yes” to even one of these questions — or, let’s face it, if you answer “no” but in a too quick defensive way that probably means you’re in an emotional affair with backcombing — you’re definitely part of the problem.

As much as it pains you, please try just washing and air-drying

without forcing any area of your hair to stand at attention, which is the beginning of the slippery slope toward “Total Eclipse of the Heart” hair. Be the lack of pouf you wish to see in the world.

DEAR ANN: If I get my skin tags removed, does that count as cosmetic surgery? DEAR READER: Listen, I’m just going to go with my first reaction versus contacting my insurance company or any other actual research, because I think that what you’re trying to feel out here is how other people would react if for some reason your dermatological concerns were to come up in conversation.

And my first reaction is: Probably no, but also who cares.

The “probably no” is because my casual understanding of cosmetic surgery is that it’s either to change a permanent feature you don’t like or to reverse some sign of aging, and I’m reasonably sure that most procedures in those categories don’t also involve biopsies to check for errant growth of cells, which I’m pretty sure is what happens to chopped-off skin tags.

It’s also my understanding that the very skin tags that start out tiny, perceptible only by touch when you obsessively run your fingers over the spots where they seem to be cropping up, are the very ones capable of growing into witchlooking balls of flesh that dangle from their connecting point like bulbous little ornaments celebrating some morbid joyless holiday.

In summary, skin tag removal strikes me as a preventive measure and therefore not cosmetic, despite that what you’re preventing includes the tags becoming obnoxiously visible.

When you call the dermatology office to schedule, ask if whatever gets cut off will be biopsied. If it’s up to you, request it. That should give you all the reassurance and/or justification and/or permission you need.

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Got a question? Submit it at annrosenquistfee.com (click on Ann’s Fashion Fortunes). Ann Rosenquist Fee is executive director of the Arts Center of Saint Peter and host of Live from the Arts Center, a music and interview show Thursdays 1-2 p.m. on KMSU 89.7FM. Mankato | Amboy | Eagle Lake | Vernon Center | cbfg.net